1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to print control apparatuses and methods that transfer print information based on print modes automatically set in accordance with rendering commands from an application, and storage media containing machine-readable programs therefor.
2. Description of the Related Art
In print processing by a printer for a data processor provided with a conventional print control apparatus, concerning print-mode selection for printing, there is currently only a method of using a print mode selected on a print-setting screen by a user, even if the printer has a plurality of print modes such as a page-description-language (PDL) mode and an image mode.
The print mode selected by the user is applied to the processing of all pages included in a print job. Thus, all the pages are processed in the same print mode.
As described above, in conventional processing by a printer, there is only a method of using a print mode selected by a user, even if the printer has other optional print modes such as a PDL mode and an image mode. Accordingly, printing is executed without consideration of the optimal print mode for printing throughput and print data for the printer, which causes a problem in that printing throughput deteriorates if the user has not selected a print mode adapted for the print data.
In addition, the application of the print mode selected by the user to all the pages included in the print job causes problems in that some pages are not processed in the optimal print mode, and if a print mode adapted for each page was not selected, printing throughput deteriorates.
Accordingly, the present invention has been made in order to solve the foregoing problems, and it is an object thereof to provide a print control apparatus and method, and a machine-readable storage medium containing programs therefor in which the rendering-processing time necessary for each page is computed for each print mode, and a print mode having the least processing time is set, whereby an optimal print mode for each page can be set automatically regardless of the print mode set by a user, and print processing that utilizes a maximum of printing resources can be executed in a minimum time to significantly increase printing throughput.
To this end, according to a first aspect of the present invention, the foregoing object has been achieved through provision of a print control apparatus for transforming, in accordance with different print modes, graphics commands from an application into print control commands to be analyzed by a printer before transferring the print control commands via a predetermined communication medium, the print control apparatus comprising: acquisition means for acquiring transformation-time coefficient data for the print modes; computation means for computing in units of pages, based on the transformation-time coefficient data acquired by the acquisition means, transformation periods for transforming the graphics commands from the application; selecting means for selecting one print mode for each page which has the least transformation period by comparing the transformation periods for the print modes computed by the computation means; determination means for determining whether or not the selected one print mode for each page is identical to a set print mode; and changing means for changing the set print mode into the selected one print mode, based on the determination by the determination means when a print control command for each page is generated.
According to a second aspect of the present invention, the foregoing object has been achieved through provision of the print control apparatus (according to the first aspect) further comprising: first setting means for setting a layout print mode in which print pages are reduced in size to be arranged on one page; wherein when the layout print mode is set by the first setting means, the computation means computes and totals in units of physical pages including reduced pages, based on the transformation-time coefficient data acquired for the print pages by the acquisition means, the transformation periods for transforming the graphics commands for the application.
According to a third aspect of the present invention, the foregoing object has been achieved through provision of the print control apparatus (according to the first aspect) further comprising: second setting means for setting a two-sided-layout print mode in which print pages are reduced in size to be arranged on one page as the front or back surface of a recording medium; wherein when the two-sided-layout print mode is set by the second setting means, the computation means computes and totals in units of front-surface or back-surface pages, based on the transformation-time coefficient data acquired for each of the print pages by the acquisition means, the transformation periods for transforming the graphics commands for the application.
According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, the foregoing object has been achieved through provision of the print control apparatus (according to the first aspect) wherein different print modes include a vector graphics print mode and a raster graphics print mode.
According to a fifth aspect of the present invention, the foregoing object has been achieved through provision of a print control method for transforming, in accordance with different print modes, graphics commands from an application into print control commands to be analyzed by a printer before transferring the print control commands via a predetermined communication medium, the print control method comprising: an acquisition step for acquiring transformation-time coefficient data for the print modes; a computation step for computing in units of pages, based on the transformation-time coefficient data acquired in the acquisition step, transformation periods for transforming the graphics commands from the application; a selecting step for selecting one print mode for each page which has the least transformation period by comparing the transformation periods for the print modes computed in the computation step; a determination step for determining whether or not the selected one print mode for each page is identical to a set print mode; and a changing step for changing the selected set print mode into the one print mode, based on the determination by the determination step when a print control command for each page is generated.
According to a sixth aspect of the present invention, the foregoing object has been achieved through provision of a print control method for transforming, in accordance with different print modes graphics commands from an application into print control commands to be analyzed by a printer before transferring the print control commands via a predetermined communication medium, the print control method comprising: an acquisition step for acquiring transformation-time coefficient data for each print mode; a first determination step for determining whether or not a layout print mode in which print pages are reduced in size to be arranged in one page is set; a computation step for computing and totaling in units of physical pages including reduced pages, based on each transformation-time coefficient data acquired in the acquisition step, transformation periods for transforming the graphics commands when the first determination step has determined that the layout print mode is set; a selecting step for selecting one print mode for each page which has the least transformation period by comparing the transformation periods for the print modes computed in the computation step; a second determination step for determining whether or not the print mode for each page selected in the selecting step is identical to a set print mode; and a changing step for changing the set print mode into the one print mode selected in the selecting step, based on the determination by the second determination step when a print control command for each print mode is generated.
According to a seventh aspect of the present invention, the foregoing object has been achieved through provision of a print control method for transforming, in accordance with different print modes, graphics commands from an application into print control commands to be analyzed by a printer before transferring the print control commands via a predetermined communication medium, the print control method comprising: an acquisition step for acquiring transformation-time coefficient data for each print mode; a first determination step for determining whether or not a two-sided-layout print mode in which print pages are reduced in size to be arranged in one page as the front surface or back surface of a recording medium is set; a computation step for computing and totaling in units of front-surface or back-surface pages, based on the transformation-time coefficient data acquired for each print page in the acquisition step, transformation periods for transforming the graphics commands for the application when the first determination step has determined that the two-sided-layout print mode is set; a selecting step for selecting one print mode for each page which has the least transformation period by comparing the transformation periods for the print modes computed in the computation step; a determination step for determining whether or not the print mode for each page selected in the selecting step is identical to a set print mode; and a changing step for changing the set print mode into the one print mode selected in the selecting step, based on the determination by the determination step when a print control command for each page is generated.
According to an eighth aspect of the present invention, the foregoing object has been achieved through provision of a storage medium containing machine-readable programs for controlling a data processing apparatus in which graphics commands from an application are transformed in accordance with different print modes into print control commands to be analyzed by a printer, and the print control commands are transferred via a predetermined communication medium, the programs each causing the data processing apparatus to perform the following steps comprising: an acquisition step for acquiring transformation-time coefficient data for each print mode; a computation step for computing in units of pages, based on the transformation-time coefficient data acquired in the acquisition step, transformation periods for transforming the graphics commands from the application; a selecting step for selecting one print mode for each page which has the least transformation period by comparing the transformation periods for the print modes computed in the computation step; a determination step for determining whether or not the selected one print mode for each page is identical to a set print mode; and a changing step for changing the set print mode into the selected one print mode step, based on the determination by the determination step when a print control command for each page is generated.
According to a ninth aspect of the present invention, the foregoing object has been achieved through provision of a storage medium containing machine-readable programs for controlling a data processing apparatus in which graphics commands from an application are transformed in accordance with different print modes into print control commands to be analyzed by a printer, and the print control commands are transferred via a predetermined communication medium, the programs causing the data processing apparatus to perform the following steps: an acquisition step for acquiring transformation-time coefficient data for each print mode; a first determination step for determining whether or not a layout print mode in which print pages are reduced in size to be arranged in one page is set; a computation step for computing and totaling in units of physical pages including reduced pages, based on each transformation-time coefficient data acquired in the acquisition step, transformation periods for transforming the graphics commands when the first determination step has determined that the layout print mode is set; a selecting step for selecting one print mode for each page which has the least transformation period by comparing the transformation periods for the print modes computed in the computation step; a second determination step for determining whether or not the print mode for each page selected in the selecting step is identical to a set print mode; and a changing step for changing the set print mode into the one print mode selected in the selecting step, based on the determination by the second determination step when a print control command for each print mode is generated.
According to a tenth aspect of the present invention, the foregoing object has been achieved through provision of a storage medium containing machine-readable programs for controlling a data processing apparatus in which graphics commands from an application are transformed in accordance with different print modes into print control commands to be analyzed by a printer, and the print control commands are transferred via a predetermined communication medium, the programs causing the data processing apparatus to perform the following steps: an acquisition step for acquiring transformation-time coefficient data for each print mode; a first determination step for determining whether or not a two-sided-layout print mode in which print pages are reduced in size to be arranged in one page as the front surface or back surface of a recording medium is set; a computation step for computing and totaling in units of front-surface or back-surface pages, based on the transformation-time coefficient data acquired for each print page in the acquisition step, transformation periods for transforming the graphics commands for the application when the first determination step has determined that the two-sided-layout print mode is set; a selecting step for selecting one print mode for each page which has the least transformation period by comparing the transformation periods for the print modes computed in the computation step; a determination step for determining whether or not the print mode for each page selected in the selecting step is identical to a set print mode; and a changing step for changing the set print mode into the one print mode selected in the selecting step, based on the determination by the determination step when a print control command for each page is generated.